Windows + CGMiner - My Settings plus general discussion

[blowfish_uk]

so this is my attempt at a useful post to get me closer to getting out of the newbie forum!

Operating System: Windows 7 Ultimate x64
Catalyst Driver: 12.6
AMD APP SDK: 2.4

Boards: Radeon 6770 + 5770
GPU:  950MHz
Mem: 1300MHz
Volt:  1.125

Miner: CGMiner 2.11.4

Pools: wemineltc.com, fc.ltcoin.net

My CGMiner batch file as follows...

cgminer.exe --scrypt -o stratum+tcp://eu.wemineltc.com:3333 -u myusername -p mypassword --worksize 256 --lookup-gap 2 --thread-concurrency 3100 -g 1 --intensity 17

I'm using a Catalyst Control Center profile with a modified XML file to get around the AMD Powerplay 2D GPU Clock throttling problem.
Really irritating having clock speeds topping out at 500MHz. Can get between 205 - 215 KH/s with the above settings 

Getting around 1 LTC per day give or take. Hopefully doubling that with a 7870 coming on board this week 

If anyone needs any help or has any suggestions for a better hash rate, let me know.

[massnerder]

I need help!  lol

I am running the 13.5beta drivers and my BTC mining works fine.  Do I NEED to have the SDK stuff installed to mine LTC?

I have been playing with several different driver configurations with and without the SDK and always no luck, but I am not sure whether or not i really must have it.

[blowfish_uk]

yes, you will always need the SDK. not just for LTC. it's how the mining programs interface with the graphics card
i expect the 13.5 package installed it automatically. you can verify by starting to go through the uninstall process and choosing custom.
it will show you all of the installed components.

if you are moving to LTC from BTC then i would consider doing a bit of research on which SDK and driver version are best for your hardware

i use cgminer and the scrypt readme clearly states SDK 2.6 is best for 5xxx and 6xxx cards
i also get the best hash rate with 12.6 drivers. i was on 13.1 before that. the difference was quite a lot of KH/s

[massnerder]

well my BTC miner still works, so it must have installed the SDK.... actually it says sdk 10.0.9 in catalyst  and the drivers say 12.102 even though I just installed the 13.5 version... weird??

That may be my problem though, I was using the 2.8 SDK in most of my previous attempts. So I will go download 2.6

I have the same 6770 card though so I should just follow your config....  if i run the uninstall on the drivers / SDK, will I be able to downgrade or will I have to go manually remove some files?  ( I read a howto last week that had me rebooting to safe mode and manually deleting a bunch of ati / opencl dll files...  but it seemed to work )

[blowfish_uk]

i've successfully downgraded my SDK without entering safe mode
you just need to delete opencl.dll and amdocl.dll from the c:\windows\syswow64 folder after uninstalling the current version
also, do custom installs of any future driver installs so they don't upgrade your SDK automatically

i haven't run stock clocks for a while but you should get around 200KH/s with 900/1250 and 210KH/s with 950/1300

i use GPU-Z to ensure my clocks are what they should be

[massnerder]

Thanks a lot, wasn't doing custom installs either, who knows where my problem was lol ....

Hopefully I will have it straightened out after these 2 downloads finish.

I need to get this one going so I can start figuring out how I am gonna start the quad 7950 setup that is on the way 

[blowfish_uk]

that will be a sweet setup. maybe you could hook up a dog and wheel to power it!

[massnerder]

lol, I think my dog probably could power it if he had the right carrot hanging in front of him 

Still downloading sdk 2.6... will post my results here after my catalyst software is updated (downdated?)

[blowfish_uk]

cool. yes please post your hash rates. dont forget you may need to downgrade your catalyst drivers too

[massnerder]

already done, uninstalled drivers and manually removed those 2 files.  did a restart.  custom installed 12.6 drivers without sdk.  installing sdk 2.6 now

when it's done I will restart again and try to fire up a miner

[massnerder]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

2 days later and it works!  Thanks a whole lot

I am only doing about 150khash/sec with guiminer - scrypt, but at least it works.

I am going to try and set up plain old cgminer and see if I get better rates

[blowfish_uk]

nice. glad it's working.
which miner is guiminer using on the backend. try cgminer for maybe better hash rates
at stock speeds, i think 150 is a little low for a 6770.
i'm getting ~210 @ 950/1300

at least your mining now 

[massnerder]

I believe it does use cgminer on the backend, not 100% though.

Yes, at least I'm mining, but now I have other problems lol....

So, I got it working, and I had a bunch of extra crap installed from trying to figure it out, so I wiped my hard drive and started fresh.  I am still mining now, but ....

first, with my fresh install of windows, I installed the 12.6 drivers and 2.6 SDK with custom installs so nothing would overwrite.  It no longer worked.  Only after I installed the latest drivers, removed them like you said above, and then rolled back to 12.6 / 2.6 did I actually get it to mine again, which was very weird. 

Also, I would like to play with clock rates to get better hashing speed, but I can't open the catalyst software anymore.  I get a popup window the application has stopped working, so I can't access those settings now.  I'm afraid I may break the miner if I try and install it again or another version.  Is there any alternative or known fix for that?  Should I try a different version anyway?

Third, now that my graphics drivers work and mine for me, the hdmi audio driver for the card is broken, so I have no sound since this box is hooked up to a tv via hdmi.  Not a huge big deal, but I would like to have the ability to use it for multimedia from time to time.

[massnerder]

OK...  so I installed and uninstalled a ton of different driver packages, and finally got settled in with the new 13.5 beta2 (again, but it works this time... weird)

I am still mining at only about 150khash, but my sound works and I can use catalyst to manage my OC settings.  have my clock set the same as yours in the OP

Now all I have to do is set up cgminer instead of the guiminer and see how much better I can do
(edit) I tried cgminer using your command with my own info and I got nothing... starting cgminer....  and crash.  Did a few variations with fewer / different flags and keep getting the same result

[blowfish_uk]

hmm, that's all a bit weird. mine are dedicated mining rigs for now so I don't have to worry about other driver components like hdmi audio etc
you might have your hand forced on driver version for your HTPC stuff

I can't explain your troubles with the CCC. it's worked ok for me.

I did have some troubles with CGMiner with 2.8 and 2.7 versions of the SDK but it's been fine for me with 2.6.
Sorry I can't be much more help. I've learned as I've gone and know enough to setup my rigs as they are and not much more!

[massnerder]

I had the same issues with cgminer no matter which driver or sdk I am using

The important thing is that it is working now, or mostly working.

The last problem is that now that LTC mining works, BTC mining doesn't...  but I don't know if I even want to fix that